The Importance Of Life In Civil War

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Pages: 3

Scurvy, malaria, smallpox, and depression; so many different ways to die. Life in Civil War prison camps is a dreadful place to be stuck in; horrendous smell and an extremely unsanitized place, how could people live in such conditions? Frigid, ice cold nights and sweltering hot days cause so many deaths everyday. Camps that are made for 10,000 people cram in over 32,000 people. The biggest and crammed of all of the prison camps is the Andersonville prison in Georgia. When prisoner exchanges were suspended in 1864, prison camps grew immensely in size and population; especially in the Andersonville prison camp.
Being held so tightly captive and lingering depression is causing people to go crazy and start to execute people. Civil War soldiers who fight in the Civil War get fed things like pork and vegetables to sustain them and to satisfy them; they then rest and lay fast asleep under the stars. Meanwhile, in prison camps, prisoners starve eating little portions, forcing themselves to eat awful things like bitter, sour bread, rusty meat, and other rotten things.
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On November 7th, 1864, I visited Andersonville prison myself and sure enough, it was quite a macabre. Benny Whistman, a former prisoner, stated,
“Life was vile; so many deaths and sufferings that it would have been less painful to just be shot right on the battlefield for prison camp conditions were ten times worse.”
Benny Whistman lived through this atrocious way of living for months and decided to speak up and say what conditions were truly